I have been a scientist in the field of the earth and environmental sciences for 33 years, specializing in geologic disposal of nuclear waste, energy-related research, subsurface transport and environmental clean-up of heavy metals. I consult on strategic planning for the DOE, EPA/State environmental agencies, and industry including companies that own nuclear, hydro, wind farms, large solar arrays, coal and gas plants. I also consult for EPA/State environmental agencies and industry on clean-up of heavy metals from soil and water. For over 20 years I have been a member of Sierra Club, Greenpeace, the NRDC, the Environmental Defense Fund and many others, as well as professional societies including the America Nuclear Society, the American Chemical Society and the American Association of Petroleum Geologists.

Germany -- Insane Or Just Plain Stupid?

After the tsunami destroyed the Fukushima plants, Germany moved quickly to shut eight nuclear power plants, and made plans do away completely with their nuclear capability. Despite the best safety record of any industry in the country, and the critical role nuclear plays in fueling German industry, Germany’s past experience with large tsunamis was just too horrific to ignore. And Germany’s strong economy and commitment to protect the environment were small prices to pay for Chancellor Merkel to shore up her weak coalition with the Free Democrats. Maybe she can ask Greece for help later.

Germany is building a fleet of new coal-fired power plants to replace their shuttered nuclear fleet, reversing their downward trend in carbon emissions and pollutants. Source: Parys Ryszard/Shutterstock

But don’t worry. Germany is building about 25 clean coal-fired power plants to offset the loss of nuclear and address Germany’s admittedly “unaffordably expensive and unreliable” renewable portfolio (Der Spiegel). The German Green Party can now celebrate the opening of a 2,200 MW coal-fired power plant near Cologne. It started spewing out its annual, relatively clean, 13 million tons of CO2, and other nasties, so much lower than those older dirty coal plants that would have put out 15 million tons of CO2 for the same power output.

A perfect fit to Germany’s low-carbon future.

We usually give the Germans credit for being rational, but this coal plant will emit over one million times more carbon this year than all of their nuclear plants would have over the next 20 years, and cost over twice as much to run as any one of the them. Germany’s present strategy will absolutely not allow them to reduce their carbon emissions anywhere near their goal of 40% by 2020.

Unless the German people give up the nice parts of their lifestyle and become insanely efficient, they most likely will not reduce their emissions at all by 2020.

But the new Federal Environment Minister, Peter Altmaier, was quite excited during his discussion of the new coal plant, “The new power plant is an impressive example of how the high levels of efficiency of modern coal- and gas-fired power plants not only help to reduce carbon emissions but can also make an outstanding contribution to the success of energy industry transformation” (Energy Business Review).

Wow, this coal plant is flexible indeed. It has a purported efficiency of 43%, up 10% from old plants. It can ramp up and down within minutes to meet renewable’s intermittency. It burns lignite coal, the cleanest of all coal, of which Germany has plenty. And at $3.4 billion, it’s a steal.

And it comes in the nick of time for German industry. Thanks to their Renewable Energy Act (EEG) and the shutting of their nuclear plants, the country’s energy costs are skyrocketing and driving German manufacturing out of business or off-shore (Germany Rethinks Its Energy Revolution).

The EEG is simple: renewables get a guaranteed high price for their electricity for almost a decade, the utilities have to take it onto the grid in front of all other energy sources, they have to buy it at rates way-above market value, and the difference is paid for by the average citizen at the end of each month.

What could go wrong?

Electricity costs are going up more rapidly than expected because Germany failed to integrate this EEG plan into the larger infrastructure development needed to implement it. The grid can’t handle it, the transmission system is not there, and the power disruptions and brownouts are wreaking havoc on the country’s energy reliability. And the consumer is expected to pay even more to fix these problems in the short-term.

No one thought Germany would be insane enough to shut down their nuclear plants, without a reason and without backup, when it was producing the cheapest energy in Europe. In fact, Germany’s nuclear production was the only economic way to implement the EEG, even if nuclear was to be phased out early as the new mix matured. And they could still be restarted relatively quickly and cheaply.

Coal mining is a dirty and dangerous business, but is getting better. That's good news for Germany, who's coal use is about to skyrocket. Source: NREL

But it better be quick, because all German industrial and manufacturing sectors – steel, aluminum, paper, cement, plastics, chemical – are migrating to countries with cheaper electricity as energy and carbon-costs are eating up to 50% of their expenses. Almost one in five German industrial companies plans to, or already has, shifted capacities abroad (Switch to Renewables Endangers Germany’s Industry).

ThyssenKrupp, Germany’s largest steelmaker, expects 5,000 job losses because of high electricity prices, and recently sold its Krefeld stainless steel mill to a Finnish competitor, devastating a little town on the Rhine. The Düsseldorf-based conglomerate GEA closed its zinc plant in nearby Datteln. Europe’s largest copper producer, Aurubis of Hamburg, announced plans to move some operations abroad, especially to Asia and South America, where energy is cheaper. Aluminum manufacturer Norsk Hydro substantially cut back production in its Neuss plant, having shut down two production lines completely, and forcing the plant’s 450 workers to reduced hours.

Seemingly unwitting, the green energy sector forgets that they also need steel, cement, and plastic, a fact noted, ironically, by the left-leaning Social Democratic Party Chairman Sigmar Gabriel.

As expected in the vicious circle started by all this, social unrest is just beginning. The average household in Germany will be paying almost double for energy next year compared to last year. Many of Germany’s poor and unemployed are on fixed energy credits, and can’t afford either the increased electricity costs or the cost of energy-efficient appliances that could counter their rising monthly bills. Wealthy citizens can install solar panels and actually make money on them.

Unfortunately, the middle-class is bearing the brunt of the tax burden for both the industry and the poor, as well as paying the bulk of the increasing monthly costs. Soon Germany may not have the economic engine to carry the rest of Europe through its financial crisis. Merkel will have to find another coalition or her government may fall.

So it’s a perfect storm for coal to come to the rescue. I mean, it’s clean, right?

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You are not understanding my point. The problem I have with your statement is not that you are astoinished about a fixed price for 20 years, but that you show your unknowledge about it.

It shows to me that you are not knowing what you are writting about. The 20 years fixed price is an essential part of the EEG and your *WOW* shows that you aren’t knowing what the EEG is about as this fixed price is an esential part of it since the beginning.

On the case of a volantile markets, now the only point which is volantile ont the production side is the fuel and as for windpower or solarpower the fuel doesn’t cost anything it can’t be volantile.

The factor is that the price is fixed makes it clear what has to be paid. The only point of importance is that you have to pay as buyer a clear defined price.

Solar has dropped the price tag foor electricty in Germany. IT would be better if people in USA or UK writting about this matter would at least make some research into this case.

Yes, I understand your point. I had not read the EEG in detail but knew it must contain a PPA rate, they all do. In the U.S., it varies from 10 years to 30 years, but the 20 years is interesting because it is the design-life of the unit, which is risky. The volatile market isn’t the issue with renewables because it’s not like a fluctuating fuel price that PPAs were meant to stabilize. Wind locked in a price that was very high because it cannot compete without it, not because it will fluctuate in costs. The WOW was probably to much of an effect, sorry.

My read is that the German plan had been nuclear, and wind has been a “green” excuse to drive the price of electricity up, while fostering employment and exports. The renewables business employs about 200,000 people (in Germany). Germany’s best export has been the EEG law which effectively gives the wind and pv types any and all money they need to stay afloat. Fukushima was not in the “plan”, and Germany is caught in the eco trap it set up for the hordes of idiots (and their corrupt politicians) that adopted bogus green policies. Wind is a pre-19th century technology, current windmills tried and failed to become fashionable after 1973 and 1979, and the word is getting out: Wind operators get paid for parasitic electricity which does not replace conventional fossil fuels (never mind conventional plants).

Try running an elevator on wind power. Or an emergency room of a hospital. Or a foundry making windmill parts.

With in excess of 25,000 installed wind MW, Germany managed a 7% “contribution” to electrical power needs in 2011 (I suspect that the actual fuel replaced is way below 7%) with about 900 grid instability events, including two major ones involving emergency imports of power and emergency power dumping onto neighbors’ grids. EON had predicted in 2005 what is now surfacing as a fact: Wind cannot substitute more than 4-6% of its rated capacity in conventional fuel.

The theory that wind is a good supplement to gas is also dubious. Open cycle gas can load-follow, but is inefficent relative to dual cycle (which cannot load-follow).

Idiotic or Insane, you ask? Ignorant, maybe? I rather think Indifferent, or even outright Infidel-itous. In other words, I suspect that Germany, now living a renewable train-wreck, wonders if aggressive carbon-reduction is a worthwhile goal.

As I discussed earlier, Germans probably now recognize that unilateral carbon reduction actually accelerates carbon emissions while undermining their standard of living. I doubt that most have come to reject the link between global warming and carbon dioxide, but I wouldn’t be surprised if many now think alarms have been overstated.

Other notes: The Cologne plant doesn’t sound miraculous, except that I question the implied $1.55/W capital cost. [BTW, a friend once told me that China can build nuclear for about $2.50/W--can you confirm or deny?] Now, 43% coal efficiency is a 10% improvement over Germany’s current Average 39% efficiency, which blends older plants with newer ones. France’s national average is about 41% already. The US is stuck at 36%, because we basically stopped investing in coal generation last century. And Cologne won’t both get 43% and follow load–they will have to choose. Finally, I won’t believe Germany has rejected nuclear until I see reactors being dismantled wholesale.

Installation costs, like levelized costs, depend heavily on how it is financed. I don’t know how the Germans are financing these coal plants but government financing and subsidies are the most efficient and lowest cost. It’s how the Koreans underbid the French for the UAE reactors, they subsidized about $40%, which begs the question of how long will it take to break even on that. But it was a politicoeconomic decision that is intended to establish Korea as the primary nuclear supplier opposing China’s rise. But China is leading the world in government support of energy construction and yes, they can build nuclear for less than $3/W. The race between China and the U.S. to build the first GenIII AP1000 nuclear plant is close and the cost of the U.S. one is almost twice as much just because of this issue. The U.S. nuclear industry has not yet received any loan guarantees for new builds but is still competitive. The lack of U.S. government support for the U.S. nuclear industry makes it more difficult to build in the U.S. but, more importantly, prevents us from being competitive on the world market. This is bad, since we do nuclear better and safer than anyone else. It is no surprise that the only two nuclear accidents in history did not occur in the U.S. We should want the U.S. industry to expand in the world. At least we should want more oversight of nuclear in the world with severe punishments for not following guidelines from the IAEA or the NRC before an accident occurs, so we don’t have another Fukushima.

This blog entry is made up mostly of false and misleading statements that have become all too common in the press, and which have been debunked. See the following links to an expert commentator from Germany who sums up the facts well in English:

Listen folks, it’s fine that you can focus on my lesser understanding of the German system than the U.S., but none of these discussions address the fact that shutting down the existing nukes robbed Germany of the lowest cost, lowest carbon, safest energy source available and that it hurts Germany’s move towards 80% renewables by mid-century. Germany needs to squeeze every kWhr out of the existing nukes, even if they don’t build another one.

Diane, these are excellent synopses, but don’t address the issues we’re talking about. Morris’ work is like all other policy papers, whether pro-nuke, pro-gas or pro-coal. There’s no one silver bullet and everything has its cost. Which is why a reasonable mix of everything is what’s necessary.

And Morris doesn’t discuss the effect of shutting down the existing nuclear plants, just that it’s fine. To say new nuclear will be more expensive than old is obvious, and has nothing to do with shutting down the existing nuclear power, the least expensive of all. He completely misrepresents the massive $8 billion subsidy for Vogtle. It’s not a subsidy, it’s a loan guarantee, not a tax break like renewables and fossil fuels are getting. Loan guarantees almost always make the government and taxpayers money, Solyndra notwithstanding, and less than 2% of them have failed. Besides, that loan guarantee hasn’t been provided yet, and Vogtle is going forward without it anyway.

There’s also no discussion of capacity factor in Morris’ paper or of costs at all, except to say that isn’t the point of renewables. No one believes that German electricity prices will only be 12% above 2011 prices, and that everyone’s happy with that.

The idea of using excess solar and wind to generate hydrogen is great but the efficiency of that process is only 15% if you split water, making it an extremely costly process. If you split methane, it’s several times more efficient than water but then you’re using methane. Yes, we need to generate as much biogas from waste as possible but that’s not enough, and it’s still costly to use renewable energy to generate hydrogen from that. Using gas as a storage medium cuts the efficiency in half, and doubles the cost. If Germany becomes so efficient that its energy use drops such that cost is no issue, that would be phenomenal.

Morris really pushes natural gas as the couple to renewables, even though it’s expensive and most needs to be imported. But why does he say that there’s no future in German coal and that it is highly unlikely any new plants will be built? If the Cologne plant was planned in 2006, why didn’t he know about it? Why does he say Germany isn’t planning coal plants?

Also, equating nuclear waste to global warming as an urgent planetry problem is really bizarre. Nuclear waste is not a problem technically or scientifically (we already know what to do with it, e.g., WIPP), it is a political problem. Global warming is a huge problem that dwarfs anything like waste, even coal impoundments, the worst of all energy waste streams. It’s great that Germany reduced its carbon footprint but strange that Morris claims that Germany now has the right to increase its footprint because others haven’t. This isn’t a zero sum game. And yes, America has done horribly, like everyone else. We need to reduce fossil fuel as much as possible and just getting the industrialized world back to Kyoto won’t do it. It’s not enough. A mixture of renewables, gas and nuclear, with as little coal as possible, is the only likely path to a low-carbon world.

Sorry, but this is one of the worst articles I have ever read about this topic.

1. Yes, unfortunately new plants burning coal are planned. But the rest of your post is simply wrong: The plant next Cologne has been built to replace nuclear power plants after the decision to move away from nuclear? Let’s see – Fukushima was March 2011 – so the Germans planned and built a 2200 MW plant in 18 months? Really? This must be the most efficient bureaucracy in the world. And great German engineering of course.

I don’t know where your number of 25 comes from – there are many different numbers around. Wikipedia lists currently 17 planned. Please note also the status – some are pending (and will probably never be built) and the dates – I can’t see any relation to the decision to move from nuclear to renewables. (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_geplanter_Kohlekraftwerke_in_Deutschland)

You write that the industry is leaving Germany? That is true. It has been true for the last 40 years! Just look ot the Cologne-Area and the “Ruhrgebiet”. There is nothing left of a former huge coal and steel industry. But are they leaving because of the costs of renewables? Certainly not, because they don’t pay a single cent for it. Heavy energy consuming industry is excluded from the EEG. (Currently about 730 companies, including all of your examples)

Social unrest? Energy bills almost double? What do you smoke or where do you get this information from? The last numbers I heard is that an average household will have to pay about 70€ more in 2013. This is about 6%. Still a big increase and for the poorer one’s a lot of money, but only a very small part of it comes from renewables. Have a look at the reports of the four big energy concerns and you will know where the money goes!

And your last comment about the wealthy citizens and the middle-class: It is mainly the middle class that installs solar panels / wind mills.

To summarize: There is a long way to go and there are certainly many things that should be discussed in the way Germany moves to renewables. But your so post/”article” is either insane or just plain stupid.

Very cute. when you discuss a carbon-constrained world you include other GHGs in the carbon, just like a carbon tax is not just for CO2, especially since methane is becoming such an issue with fracking. If you’re just talking about CO2 emissions from a coal plant, yes, it’s essentially CO2. But what’s your point?